Father And Son Pull 200+ Electric Scooters From Lansing River

I've been loving this trend of adding electric scooters to cities. Not only is it a great way of adding a source of public transportation for inner-city travel, but riding these bad boys on a night out is SUCH A VIBE. Wind in your hair, streets light zipping by; it is a good time.

However, two issues plague these scooters everywhere they go:

Lazy people: People who decide that, instead of returning the scooters to the designated parking spots, they just dump them or leave them wherever their trip ended.

Hooligans: This is the problem that East Lansing has faced after over 200 of a local e-scooter brand's scooters were fished out of a river.

Goin' Fishing

I was browsing Reddit the other day and came across a pretty wild post over on the r/magnetfishing subreddit from a gentleman who revealed he "accidentally got e-scooters banned in my state in 3 days...". This is a bit of an exaggeration, but there's no denying that Xan DuLow and his dad Cal found a s*** ton of scooters. 

In case you've never heard of magnet fishing, it's similar to regular fishing but instead of using bait to catch fish, these fishers throw a powerful magnet into the water and hope to find lost relics in bodies of water. In this case, they were fishing in the Red Cedar River.

We accidentally got e-Scooters banned in my state in 3 days...
byu/XanDuLowMagnetizer inmagnetfishing

The caption read as follows:

I got the company "Spin" banned and license revoked from pretty much the entire state of Michigan after finding over 200 electric scooters in the red cedar river... Funny part, we were never planning to magnet fish this area until the main area we were gonna fish was under road construction. We drove over an hour each way to magnet fish the Lansing, MI area.

 

The photos are jaw-dropping, but the video of the duo finding all these scooters is even more crazy. Lowing says that these scooters could weigh "over 100 pounds each" which makes it difficult when you're "pulling at least 30 out a day". Shockingly, there were some they pulled from the river that still held a charge.

Read More: Is It Illegal To Drive Away With The Gas Pump In Michigan?

Spin Banned From East Lansing

While the claim that these magnet fishers were the cause of the ban is a bit exaggerated, the number of scooters in the rivers did play a role in the electric scooter company Spin being banned from East Lansing. The company also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy which played a role in the ban. Mayor Brookover was quoted saying

Somebody dumped over 200 of their scootrs in the Red Cedar River, i'm not interested in doing buiness any longer with a company that allowed that to happen.

Though the scooters are banned from the City, Spin will still be allowed at Michigan State University due to a pre-existing partnership between the two.

Overall, this is another case of one man's trash is another man's treasure. These fishermen are helping clean up the rivers and expecting little in return.